Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution [Paperback]

Ravi Kalakota (Author), Marcia Robinson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321150392 | ISBN-13: 978-0321150394 | Publication Date: June 26, 2003 | Edition: 1

The authors provide students with the information they need to plan, analyze and execute these new service platforms, giving them a better grasp of the changing nature of enterprise applications and infrastructure. As future managers, they must understand that unless their firms create an effective services strategy, they are likely to be left behind. Kalakota and Robinson present a balanced perspective of what students need to know to make effective technology decisions. They write both to challenge the dominance of current piecemeal strategies and to address three critical issues: How to plan in an economy where differentiation is achieved not through products but through technology-enabled services; How to translate business imperatives into better technology execution; and How to organize the changes Web Services have wrought on the business landscape.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"This book provides managers with a strong, practical grounding in the concepts that are critical to understanding the transformation from front-end e-business to cross-enterprise service platforms."
--Dr. Peter Zencke, Member of the Executive Board, SAP AG

The trend is clear: Corporations are increasingly relying on technology-enabled services to gain a competitive edge. E-Commerce->e-business->e-services->multi-channel services. Industry leaders and followers alike are digitizing services in order to become more customer-driven and process-centric. To execute this service digitization strategy, managers must learn to effectively translate business imperatives into multi-channel services processes, applications, and infrastructure. Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution reveals how managers can plan, analyze, and execute a coherent services strategy without getting lost in a sea of technical buzzwords.

Services Blueprint begins by introducing and defining the concept of services digitization and the two components--focal points and service platforms--required to execute it effectively. The authors then examine the different blueprints: multi-channel customer relationship management, spend management, supply chain management, human capital management, and product lifestyle management. Throughout the book, case studies illustrate key insights and best practices as companies evolve their execution focus: enterprise applications->Web Services->composite applications->services.

Drawing on their experience working with leading businesses, Kalakota and Robinson provide readers with a roadmap of how to achieve differentiation through multi-channel services, translate business objectives into process models such as order-to-cash, and leverage enterprise application investments to create new cross-enterprise services platforms. Services Blueprint clearly explains why some firms are better at digitizing business processes and capturing value than others.

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About the Author

Marcia Robinson is the cofounder and president of e-Business Strategies. She has extensive experience in the service delivery and customer side of e-business for the financial services industry.

Dr. Ravi Kalakota is a pioneer in the area of e-commerce. He is the CEO of e-Business Strategies, a technology research and consulting practice, and has consulted extensively with start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (June 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321150392
• ISBN-13: 978-0321150394
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,914,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Falls Short in Execution, November 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution (Paperback)

This was an interesting book to be sure. However, as I read the book, I felt like I'd read it before from the continued use of tired buzzwords such as "digitization." Enough on DIGITIZATION! I enjoyed the process templates provided by the authors, but they clearly do not understand some of the foundational technology concepts they mentioned, such as Web Services and Services Oriented Architectures (SOA). The Authors equated application servers with SOA, which is at best a massive oversimplication, and at worst, innacurate. This led me to believe that the authors are buzzword compliant but do not really understand Web Services. Also, reducing the entire world to PORTALS as the ultimate killer app is also a massive oversimplication as well. Portals are mainstream technology now and to be honest not that exciting anymore. Everyone offers it or uses it one way or another.

So, this book started out with a good premise but didn't deliver in the end. The process templates are good baselines for process understanding for those unfamiliar with business processes. This is a nice try by the authors, but I felt a little bit shortchanged by the book...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book about Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), February 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution (Paperback)

I bought this book after reading the Darwin Magazine excerpt and having the read the authors previous best seller "e-business: raodmap for sucess". This book is really very insightful about the changes talking place in the e-business and business process management space. The book is a very clear exposition about what is being termed BPMS.

Design of an process integration framework....The book is a must read if you are a consultant who is following some of the latest moves by SAP, Siebel, Oracle, Peoplesoft and others like Tibco. The book ties together rather nicely the business objectives with business processes and enterprise apps.

Design of self-service apps... The authors take an outside in (customer or employee) perspective to the design of business processes. The authors argue that customers interact with services rather than processes. For instance, you go to Amazon.com because they are the best at digitizing the book selling service and making it easy to use.

Design of business process management... The ability to translate services into underlying business processes is the critical aspect of next generation self-service applications. The authors systematically illustrate the different types of BPM platforms that are emerging in SCM, CRM, PLM and Spend Management.

In sum, this book is worth reading for consultants, MBA students and others interested in knowing where e-business is headed. The authors have done a fantastic job of synthesizing the fragmented bodies of information and presenting a framework that ties everything together.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of Process Digitization, July 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution (Paperback)

This book is really about digitizing business processes. The book begins with an intriguing question: what makes some companies better at digitizing processes than others. The authors argue with various best-practice case studies that a digitization blueprint is a focal point (e.g., easy to do business with, every day low price) executed on service platforms.

According to the authors, Amazon.com is winning because it has a very sophisticated service platform capable of digitizing the complex order-to-fulfillment process. The authors in different middle chapters describe how the different enterprise applications (CRM, SCM, Financials) are migrating with the aid of Web Services to becoming the delivery platforms for digitized services. For example, SAP CRM 4.0 is really a multi-channel customer facing services platform.

The book ends with several chapters on how to construct a services blueprint. I really liked the chapter on how Six Sigma techniques can be used in improving portals and digital processes.

Highly recommend this book for professionals and consultants who are looking to make sense of the various buzzwords like Composite Applications, Business Process Management, and Service-Oriented Architectures like SAP's Netweaver and ESA. Technical people should avoid this book.